Archives: Email

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When I was in sixth grade, an eager classmate introduced me to the joy and excitement that was email and MSN. Oh yes, we had a blast giggling in the computer lab messaging each other online while sitting side by side. Back then, kids were creative. So when someone came up with the idea of email signatures, we all flocked to add sigs in a dizzying display of emoticons, pink comic sans fonts, and blinking unicorns.

Circa 2002 – The :] Age of Comic Sans. Emoticons in the prehistoric email world is like fire in prehistoric times – it looks good and expresses fluttering emotion, but can burn you if you use too much. To compound the damage, I also went through a phase where I wanted to appear wise above my years, hence the corny cliche.

Circa 2003 – The Age of Disco Flashback. Some genius then introduced graphics attachments. I erred on the side of conservatism and refrained from overdecorating my signatures in a nauseating shade of magenta. But I do believe some of my friends’ emails ended with the following.

Circa 2004 – The Age of cHtSpk 2lzy2TyPe. Soon, the excitement worn off and emails got tied to school work. The messages stopped having greetings and signatures. What previously said

“Dear Amy, Hope you are well. Sincerely, Phoebe.”

Now read

Amz, wassup?? u okz? ttyl brb!!

Oh how low we sunk.

Circa 2006 – The Age of Formality. As high school drew to a close, I felt the need to be more mature and professional, and thus ended my email with something simple and polite. Yawn.

Regards,
Phoebe Yu
(604) 555 – 5555

Circa 2008 – The Age of “Hey look, mine’s longer! Har Har”. This is the main point of this entry, I promise. After I entered the sacred pearly gates of UBC Sauder and started receiving emails from upperclassmen, I was COMPLETELY blown away by the level of involvement and sophistication each signature seemed to display. Sauderites also have a distinct style where people put dots instead of dashes in phone numbers. It’s all very amusing. Observe one such gem (fictious, of course).

Behold the greatness that is business school signature (though only midly exaggerated). It’s twice as long as the body of the email and three times as long as most professors’ (although the disclaimer “The content of this email is confidential and meant only for its recipient. If received in error please destroy immediately” has yet to catch on. Oh I dread the day someone popularizes that!) . I have to confess that my own email signature currently looks like an abridged version of above. From experience, I have compiled a very handy dandy guide for you called “How to Create Your Email Signature to Ensure SUCCE$$”.

Step one. Open the Word Document that contains your most recent two-page resume.

Step two. Select All and Copy.

Step three. Paste into signature of email.

Step four. Send emails and earn the lusting admiration of your peers, TA’s, professors who bother checking their emails, random-dude-who-never-responds-to-your-group-meeting-requests, and love interest you tend to flirt with by email.

I just got the funniest email from the Sauder School of Business, parts of it are reproduced below. It’s titled COMM 299 Winter Term 2 – Assignment #1‏. Homework in university over the winter break?! Hmm… it’s an online assignment/survey type that takes 40 minutes, so I didn’t mind too much. Then I read the rest of the email.

For the second term of your Comm 299 class you will be learning all about how to figure out what you want in a career and how to land your dream job. It is a very rewarding and powerful part of the course. […] Developed at the Harvard School of Business, you will receive much personal value from this assignment. See below for details.

Assignment #1: CareerLeader online assessment (5%)

STEPS:

1. Pay the MANDATORY $17.50 (taxes included) fee online at [URL]
2. Take the online assessment using the following details at [URL]
3. Print out the “Narrative Report” and bring it to class during week of Jan. 12-16 […]

* The system is setup to ensure that you can take the assessment immediately even if you do not pay before taking the assessment. We recommend you pay before beginning the assessment to avoid forgetting. But you must pay nevertheless no later than March 31 at noon. Failure to do so will result in your grades being withheld resulting in a “0” grade for the course. [emphasis added]

Wait what?! It’s a 5% assignment, that requires payment, and if we don’t pay we fail the course?! Such a bright outlook for the future of business schools. So apparently the cost is there because the class taking the assignment is very large. This is ALMOST as a good as paying $45 for a piece of paper with a password on it so I can do my econ labs online.

P.S. – Lack of updates due to exam season. I’ll be done on Tuesday and will be back with a TON of uber awesome posts =D

UPDATE: You know what? I did get some great insight from this CareerLeader survey. My professor is a huge fan of this assessment so I thought, hey, there must be some merit to it eh? Although the results weren’t what I expected, it did open my worldview to other possible career options to complement my law school journey after undergraduate years. COMM 299 is slowly becoming one of my most enjoyable classes this term. But come on Sauder, couldn’t you subsidize this?!